Never Gonna Be Over
by Copycat
Summary: "So you milk it. You play the 'I got shot and you should feel bad' card. All the time. If you'd known that card was going to be so valuable, maybe you would've stepped in front of a bullet sooner."


TITLE: Never Gonna Be Over  
AUTHOR: Copycat  
RATING: PG-13 for adult themes and language  
CLASSIFICATION: Romance Sam/Andy  
SPOILERS: Through 4x13  
SUMMARY: "So you milk it. You play the 'I got shot and you should feel bad' card. All the time. If you'd known that card was going to be so valuable, maybe you would've stepped in front of a bullet sooner."

Author's note: I needed a break from the angst of _Swim Until You Can't See Land_, and I wanted to try something different, more like what the cool kids are doing. But I'll never be cool, so I wrote it in the second person. To be honest, I'm not even sorry.

Also, this was just supposed to be a drabble, I don't really know what happened.

* * *

It's not that you don't know just how badly you fucked this up. It's just that right now, with all these wonderful drugs coursing through your veins, you kinda don't care about that.

So you milk it. You play the 'I got shot and you should feel bad' card. All the time. If you'd known that card was going to be so valuable, maybe you would've stepped in front of a bullet sooner.

It's like the fact that you almost died means everybody will just bend over backwards to please you. And, basically, the bending over pleases you.

That's why you keep dropping things and asking McNally to pick them up.

And she does. She might roll her eyes at you, but she's grinning when she does it, and then she bends over to pick up whatever it was you carelessly dropped to the floor this time.

And you just lie there, enjoying the view, because why the hell not? You have nothing better to do with your day, after all.

You never realized before just how boring hospitals are. How the nurses generally look nothing like they do in the only kind of movies you watched that had a lot of nurses in them; how their uniforms are a lot longer and have better buttons. How they actually know about medical stuff and have a completely different way of checking your temperature.

You complained once, about the boredom, not the nurses (because you do understand that there's a limit to how far you can push this), and McNally just told you being bored is better than being dead.

Which is true, but not particularly helpful. So you pushed a pillow to the floor and made her pick it up and put it back, making sure she got it just right, which took a lot longer than adjusting pillows should really take, but you kept feeling just a little uncomfortable. Not really, obviously, it was fine the first time she wedged it in between you and the raised head of the bed, but she was wearing one of those low-cut tops that was just a little bit too loose on her and you were trying to figure out if the bra she was wearing was new.

Part of you feels like maybe you should talk, have a proper conversation about important things, but for what must be the first time in her entire life, McNally doesn't seem to mind the silence and the not knowing what's really going on.

Which, bizarrely, only makes you want to talk about it more.

Because you have no idea where she goes when she leaves this hospital room that has become your whole world recently.

She could be getting up to all sorts, with all sorts of people. Or maybe just with one person, realistically.

Shit, how badly do you need to get out of this room?

She hasn't mentioned Nick at all, and you haven't asked.

Because you want to know the answer, but you don't, in case it's not the answer you want to hear. Maybe she really does just spend all her time here because she's suspended and bored, and maybe she's just a nice person, indulging you because you almost died and she feels responsible.

You should probably be feeling guilty, but you're too busy just enjoying her being this nice to you, because you can't even really remember the last time she treated you this way.

But you're pretty damn sure you didn't appreciate it at the time.

You should probably tell her it's not her fault. Any of it.

But you're too goddamn scared of saying the wrong thing and making her disappear, and you have no idea what will be the wrong thing. The past has taught you nothing in that respect. The only thing you've really learned from the past is that you need her, the same way most other people need oxygen.

And she's here, now, being sweet and kind and doing just about anything she can think of to make you feel good.

Why would you mess with a good thing? (And this _is_ a good thing.)

Because you're Sam Swarek, that's why. Screwing up good things is what you do. It's almost pathological.

So eventually you'll have to say something, and it'll be the wrong thing, and she'll be gone, and all this effort she put into making you better will have been pointless, because you won't care anymore. About anything.

But right now you just want her to smile at you, pleased and proud because she got the good jello for you. You don't give a shit about jello, but she's convinced the green one is better, and she has spent more time arguing over jello with the nurses than you spent on the phone with Bell that time they accidentally charged you $400 for long distance calls you never made.

So you pretend it matters because it seems important to her and when she smiles your day gets a little better, which means the green jello actually _is_ better.

If only you didn't have to eat it.

"So apparently Gail's a lesbian now," she says out of the blue and you almost choke on the fucking jello.

She grins, like she thinks it's funny that you're thinking all kinds of things about Peck that you probably shouldn't be thinking.

"That's nice," you say, your voice a monotone, when you're finally sure they won't have to suck the jello out of your lungs after it kills you.

"It's Holly, that pathologist, they're, like, a couple now." She pulls her feet up under herself, twirling a lock of hair around her index finger.

You just nod, concentrating on your little plastic cup of supposedly edible green goo.

"It works out well for me," she goes on and you look up at her, wondering just what the hell she means by that, trying hard not to think _too_ much about what she could mean, but she's too busy examining her split ends to look up at you. "She's all... happy... so she forgot how much she hates me."

"Why would Gail-?" You cut yourself off when you realize why. Right.

She lets go of her hair, finally, and looks straight at you, and her eyes are pleading with you, but you have no idea what the hell it is she wants from you, so you just smile, hoping against all odds that she'll tell you.

Whatever it is, you'll give it to her.

Time bends in waves around you and you have no clue how long you've been like that, just staring at each other, when she suddenly gets to her feet again, startling you. "Are your pillows okay?"

"My pillows are fine, McNally," you tell her but she comes over and starts messing with them anyway, like she didn't hear you.

She's actually making you _less_ comfortable, squishing pillows at random, so you grab her wrist to make her stop and she freezes, like a deer caught in your headlights. Like you're gonna run her over.

"Are _you_ okay?" you ask her, trying to sound like the rest of your life doesn't depend on her answer.

"I'm fine," she says in that way she has of saying 'fine' that doesn't mean 'fine' at all, it means 'I'm breaking from the inside'. You maneuver around a bit, and her eyes are on you the whole time, as if she's trying to figure out the right place to be, how to accommodate you, and you tug on her arm a little, changing your grip so you're holding her hand instead.

Her eyes are on your joined hands, confused and mesmerized, and she intertwines her fingers with yours, the slowest smile you've ever seen growing on her lips.

And then you know, without a doubt, without really knowing how you know, that all the rest of it doesn't matter. Nick, Marlo, how you ended up in this room. None of it matters; the only thing that matters is that you're both here, right now, together, and that's what was supposed to happen all along. Everything else is just shit that happened on the way to this place.

You want to tell her, share this new, sudden clarity with her, but the drugs are making you kinda woozy, so you just squeeze her hand and hope she'll get it.

Words were never your friends, anyway.

She sniffles and you realize she's crying and if someone else hadn't beaten you to it and shown you just how bad an idea it was you'd have wanted to shoot yourself.

"I'm sorry," she says, bizarrely, as if it isn't your fault she's crying. Not that you know what you did, but it's definitely your fault.

"Shut up, McNally," you tell her and you meant for it to be a joke, it was supposed to make her smile, but she looks at you like you slapped her.

This is going wrong in pretty much all the ways you could've imagined and you're not even actually doing anything. You wonder if there's a way to bring the conversation back to lesbians, or maybe you should bring up the nurses' uniforms after all, but no.

Maybe it's time to just pull off the band-aid you've covered your whole existence with after waking up in this bed. Maybe you should, before you get too used to it and start thinking it's normal or whatever.

"How's Nick?" you ask, going straight for the jugular. If your dad had been a hunter, you're sure he would've taught you to go for the quick kill. If your dad would've taught you anything at all.

Not for the first time you want to ask for a map of the maze that makes up her mind, because you honestly expected that question to make her lose it even more but that doesn't happen at all. Instead she's pulling her hand away abruptly and glaring at you as if she'd be pretty okay if that bullet had hit just a bit higher and done a bit more damage.

Is it too late to go back to dropping things and not very subtly checking her out?

Her eyes are on the door and you panic. If she leaves, you won't be able to follow her. Not that you ever did before, but somehow the fact that it isn't an option makes a difference.

"Stay," you tell her, wondering even as your lips move to form the word how it came to be what you decided to say.

And then you don't care how because she's deflating like a balloon, all her anger disappearing with just one breath as she sits down with a thud. Like it was an order, not a request.

"You shouldn't even need to ask that," she says and you wonder just how the world looks from where she is, because it must be pretty fucking different from the view you've got.

You shrug, your shoulder blades moving against the pillows she was so obsessed with a few minutes ago. "I do, though."

She's leaning forward, picking at imaginary lint on her jeans, her hair falling in front of her face, making it impossible for you to know what's going on in her head. Even more so than when she's looking at you.

"I thought you were going to die," she says at last, her voice strained.

You pull a face she doesn't see. "So did I. But I'm not." You say that like it's an explanation, which in your mind it is.

It's an out, for her. A chance to take back what she said, because everything looks different when you're looking at it from what you think is the end and maybe she said things she didn't mean.

She looks up and smiles a small, watery smile. "No, you're not," she agrees and you think maybe her red nose and puffy eyes are the prettiest thing you ever saw as the relief of this simple fact washes over her all over again.

You smile back at her, feeling like maybe this is getting back on track, except she never actually answered your question, and you _do_ need to know. It doesn't matter how sure you are of the two of you, of how good it's going to be, if it's never going to happen because she picked someone else.

"Andy," you begin, but then you stop because you don't know how to ask without screwing this up all over again and you don't think asking her to stay will work again.

She looks at you, her face sad and kind and something else you're scared to put a name to, and then she stands up and walks over to you. She shakes her head, tears spilling from her eyes, but somehow you don't mind it now, because the tears aren't _because_ of you, you think maybe they're _for_ you. "I don't get how you don't know, Sam," she tells you, like she's confused that you don't know how long it takes to hard-boil an egg.

You move your fingers and her hand finds yours as if it's the easiest thing in the world and now it's your turn to stare. You probably should know, you're thinking you probably do, but you can't be sure, because you were never sure of anything when it came to her.

"I was just trying to get over you," she says and the sadness in her voice almost breaks your heart. You don't want her to ever be over you. You don't want her to ever need to be.

"Did it work?" you ask her, your voice trembling slightly, your eyes boring into hers willing her to understand that you're not being glib, you really don't know.

It's only then that you realize she might be feeling insecure, too, because she looks almost scared as she shakes her head just slightly but enough to answer your question.

You feel the smile breaking out on your face, muscles being put to use for the first time in much too long, because you haven't smiled this widely, this sincerely, for a very long time. "Good," you tell her and her eyes dance, just for you.

She raises the hand you're not clinging onto for dear life and gently strokes your cheek and if you were into that kind of thing you'd say it was like dying and being reborn. You close your eyes, letting yourself just focus on the fact that she's touching you and you need to remember this moment forever, and then her lips brush against yours so softly you think maybe you're imagining it, so you have to open your eyes and make sure and she's right there close enough that you can just stretch your neck and your lips are on hers again, and you're kissing her properly and you don't want to remember this moment forever you want it to _last_ forever.

You want the air you breathe to come out of her lungs, your lips fused together, tongues tangled, her hand still stroking your cheek. Forever.

But then she pulls away and you groan in protest, not really caring about dignity right now, and she laughs, the sound bringing back memories of something you thought was gone forever, and you realize you haven't heard her laugh quite like that since the last time you were anything close to being happy.

You move your leg a bit, and then a bit more, even if the movement pulls at your wound in a way that's not really comfortable, and finally the remote control that was resting next to your thigh falls to the floor. "Oops," you say insincerely and she giggles before bending down to kiss you again, her smile against yours.

_End_


End file.
